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“But that’s clearly not what happened,” North said, and he directed a meaningful look at Shaw before turning his attention back to the cell. Shaw moved over to join him as North continued, “So, what did happen?”
“Ideally,” Weiss said in a tone that Shaw couldn’t pin down, “the explanation is that some sort of failure in the locking mechanism of the cell doors left both Welch and Weber unsecured.”
“Yeah,” North said, “that’d be great. What really happened?”
“We can’t be sure until the doors are inspected—”
“You didn’t have some sort of tragic coincidence when both doors magically unlocked themselves. Somebody made sure these two cell doors were open. The question is, who?”
Weiss’s mouth twisted, but she didn’t answer. Andersen’s face was ruddled with what must have been anger.
“Do you need to see anything else?” Weiss asked. “Or are we finished here?”
For the first time, Shaw let himself look into Dalton Weber’s cell. Both Weber’s body and the sheriff’s had been removed, but blood puddled on the floor, slowly drying on the concrete. More blood spattered the bunk, the walls, the sink. John-Henry had told them that the sheriff had been stabbed multiple times, but that didn’t come close to describing what must have happened. Shaw could picture it: the rapid thrusts, the resistance of muscle as the shiv penetrated, the frantic, manic energy driving Welch to stab over and over again, the blood spraying out, black under the fluorescents, the sound of the dying men’s breaths under the flurry of blows—
North squeezed Shaw’s nape. Shaw drew in a ragged breath. He blinked his eyes clear and nodded.
“We’re done here,” North said.
Weiss led them back the way they’d come, and North kept his hand on Shaw’s neck. Eyes followed them from the darkness. Shaw thought he could feel air moving against his skin, the collective breath of men caged like animals. Sweat slicked his neck where North’s hand lay heavy on it. When they stepped back into the control center, safely behind the sally port and under the watchful gaze of Deputy Lang and her eyebrows, North let his hand slide down Shaw’s back, Shaw felt cold, and he shivered in spite of himself.
“Question number one,” North said. “How the fuck did Philip Welch walk out of here?”
Lang’s mouth tightened at the swear, but Weiss just shrugged. “If you’re talking about the sally ports, well, they all have a mechanical bypass.”
“Let me guess: the sheriff is the only one with the keys.”
“It’s a security protocol.” Weiss shrugged again. “He’s not the only one, but he does have a set. In theory. If you want my guess, Welch did what he did and then waited. He stayed out of sight until Glover went to investigate why the sheriff had been gone so long. Then, while Glover was headed down to the isolation unit, he walked right out of here.”
“Really good fucking system,” North said. “They could do a whole ‘Your Dollars at Work’ show about this fuck-up.”
“Why didn’t the sheriff use his gun?” Shaw asked.
“Because he wasn’t carrying it,” Lang said, the words a little shrill, a little sharp. “Obviously.”
North spared her a glare forobviously, but he turned his attention back to Weiss when she spoke.
“All firearms are stored in a locker outside the secure facility,” Weiss said. “If there was an emergency, I guess maybe he’d take his with him. But walking back there with a gun is against protocol. I think Deputy Lang’s right about the surprise. When the sheriff stepped out of the sally port—that would be a good place to get the jump on him.”
“But there weren’t any signs of a struggle,” Shaw said.
“Inside the cell, then. He might have seen that Dalton was hurt, gone to check on him. It would have been a mistake, not following protocol, but everybody makes mistakes.”
“Is his gun here?”
Weiss grimaced. “We don’t have the key, but one of the lockers is still in use.”
Hands on hips, North was silent for what felt like a long time. When he looked at Shaw, Shaw read the question in his face and shook his head.
“What kind of timeline are we talking here?”
“What do you mean?”
“Somebody unlocked those cells. When could that have happened?”
“If it was a mechanical failure—” Lang began.
But Weiss spoke over her. “We do rounds and checks once an hour, and five full head counts every day. You didn’t see, because we didn’t go in there, but the dorms have an observation room so a CO can keep an eye on things. Everyone’s in their dorm by eight. When we’ve got someone in isolation, we do checks every fifteen minutes.”
